Wednesday, April 18, 2012

If School Was Like Twitter

As the kids filled out their silent, kill-and-drill test, I found myself wanting to interact on Twitter. I wanted to share my questions and frustrations with the people I've gotten to know. It had me wondering what school would be like if we modeled it after Twitter.

At first, this ideas sounded intriguing. We would get together in random chats, organizing our thoughts and sharing resources according to shared categories that grow organically. I'd have the permission to speak and to listen, engaging strangers at times and somehow making close friendships in the process. When things got too loud, I could move into a one-on-one mode, sharing small direct, personal messages back and forth. There would be space for deep, conflict-ridden discussions and light-hearted humor.

Then I thought about the times when I've learned the most and they had certain elements that simply don't work that well on Twitter. They involved direct action and reflection, painful conversations, longer narratives, novels and paintings and solving equations that I had to wrestle with on my own. It was never entirely self-directed, often shaped, in positive and negative ways, by the will of the group.

I really enjoy Twitter, but I grow professionally from a pint or a cup of coffee or a long hike or a game of catch or a favorite novel or a perplexing historical monograph.

I love Twitter. I really do. I love blogging, too. But I'm struck by the notion that social media should not be the basis for how we design schools. Instead, we need to design social systems that reflect the profound, the superficial, the nuanced, paradox-filled, muddled, messy nature of humanity.

14 comments:

I have just become addicted to Twitter. The simple fact that I can instantly converse with like-minded educators is truly fascinating. Also, to be able to share great ideas with the simple stroke of a keyboard to enhance our teaching is incredible. I agree with what you say regarding the times that Twitter cannot be justified being used.

I agree with Tad - I'm hooked on Twitter as well. But you're right, John. I keep thinking back to some of the online courses I've taken that feel somewhat lacking to me since the element of face-to-face conversation is not present.

I think if we start employing a combination of the two - Twitter-ish style ongoing conversation and face-to-face (Google Hangout style) meetups, we may have a recipe for success with eLearning.

Your opening line...As the kids filled out their silent, kill-and-drill test...gave rise to your wanderings about Twitter as a learning platform. There's a significant need to rip up this archaic s##t we call education. A significant read entitled: Everything you know about curriculum may be wrong. Really! This is a piece of thought for further wanderings...scratch that, a revolution.

Have you read Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler's book "Connected"? They maintain that networks shape and influence us in ways that we don't yet understand. And David Weinberger's "Too Big to Know" taught me that networks are changing the shape of knowledge itself. I learned more on Twitter (from folks I never met) than I ever did an any university program. I think we need to study networks and the behaviour of people in them. The web (and Twitter) is changing all of that.

Your opening line...As the kids filled out their silent, kill-and-drill test...gave rise to your wanderings about Twitter as a learning platform. There's a significant need to rip up this archaic mess we call education. A significant read entitled: Everything you know about curriculum may be wrong. Really! This is a piece of thought for further wanderings...scratch that, a revolution.http://grantwiggins.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/everything-you-know-about-curriculum-may-be-wrong-really/

I'm all for a revolution, but not because it's archaic. Some of the best ideas are vintage. What often passes for "new math," for example, is the type of subversive thinking that Eratosthenes used in finding the circumference of the earth.

Perfectly stated. I use a TED clip from Renny Gleeson a lot in my presentations that talks about the disconnect some of our media and devices have created within us, mostly due to our inability to wrestle with the new norms. Gleeson's plea at the end, calls upon the TED audience to design things that help make us more human, not less. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mQJYte4T2Q)

I found the issue of new norms perplexing when I did Living Facebook. Somehow doing social media in "real life" brought me face-to-face with the reality that we don't truly understand the nature of social media.

I’m glad you had this realisation and shared it with everyone. As great as Twitter is, it really can’t achieve what our current methods of education can achieve and have achieved. But perhaps it can be used to support education in some way.

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